The planning authority lacks resources to deal with big developers despite its significant legal powers, outgoing audit officer Joseph Falzon has said, reacting to the latest environmental abuse by construction magnates Polidano Brothers.
Mepa should have been on guard given the contractor’s long track record of environmental abuse, according to Mr Falzon, who is set to step down from his position at the authority at the end of the month.
“When we had carried out the Xemxija inquiry (in 2006) he (Charles Polidano, known as Ċaqnu) already had a number irregularities against his name. Many of it is known and it is known how he operates,” Mr Falzon said, admitting though that he had not really looked into the recent case.
The authority swooped on the group’s headquarters in Ħal-Farruġ on Thursday to forcibly halt an illegal development at the back of the property by barricading access to the site.
Two large illegal depots which were developed through the illegal dumping of hundreds of tons of rubble onto the fields behind the company’s premises, were sealed off along with a new concrete structure that was being developed, also illegally.
The dumping had been going on at least since 2006 but although the authority issued at least two enforcement notices over the years (in 2006 and 2009) and several warnings, action was only escalated last week after The Times started investigating the issue.
Mr Falzon pointed to similar patterns of abuse in Xemxija, where illegal excavation by Mr Polidano and his brother Paul had caused a landslide which left a neighbouring house partly jutting out in mid-air, after part of the soil under its foundations gave way.
He also referred to the abuse uncovered in Marfa, where Mr Polidano built the Solemar Hotel (later known as the Riviera Hotel) without the necessary permits. He later acquired both the land and the permits. “They have taken place on a regular basis,” he said.
Though he acknowledged that the authority seemed to have responded more decisively in this latest case than it did in the past, he said it still seemed to suffer from a lack of resources to be able to handle such large scale planning abuses.
Besides the action taken on Thursday, the authority has now also called in the police.
The authority did not reply to questions by The Times concerning details of the action taken in respect to the developer since the first enforcement notice and whether fines were issued but insisted that its officials were monitoring the infringements.
Since the enforcement notice was issued in 2006, an authority spokesman said, the enforcement directorate had carried out a number of inspections and stopped works when they noticed the developer had started building.
“The authority has also requested the police to initiate criminal action against the developer, pertaining not only to this enforcement notice (605/09) but to several others in the vicinity,” the spokesman said.